Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections

Stockton, CA 95211

Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Language:
English.

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Wirt E. Moore Papers, Mss133, Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Biography

Wert Emmit Moore was an Oregon, Washington, and California educator and Mayor of Grants
Pass, Oregon. His father was Glaudius Wilbur Moore, whose family had settled in
Marysville, California in the early 1850s. Glaudius Moore went to Texas to "ride the
range" when but fifteen and there met and married Annie E. Buttery. The couple had three
children, Wert Moore being the eldest (b.1878). The family moved to Silver City, New
Mexico (1882), where Glaudius Moore prospected for gold, then to Oregon (1885), where
Moore's father again sought gold. From 1887 to 1889 the family farmed on several Eastern
Oregon land claims, then, in 1890, the Moores moved to Gardiner, Oregon, where the father
was proprietor of a hotel. Wert went to school in Gardiner and became interested in
pioneer history. In 1892 the Moores moved to Drain, Oregon, where Glaudius was again a
hotel proprietor. The family remained there until 1937, although Glaudius Moore left at
times to prospect in Montana and Canada. In June 1899 Wert Moore graduated from the
Central Oregon State Normal School. He then began a teaching career as head teacher at
Lebam, Washington. In his subsequent early career he was Principal at Toledo and Kalama,
Wash. and County High School, Enterprise, Oregon. He then taught at Puyallup High School,
Wash., was Principal at Washington School, Olympia, Wash. and a high school teacher at
Everett, Wash.

From 1915 to 1937 Moore was employed in the Oakland (Calif.) Public Schools. His
different positions included: teacher at Oakland Technical High School; teacher at the
Evening High School; Penmanship Supervisor in city schools; Principal, Oakland Evening
High School; Director of Americanization Classes in schools; Principal of Longfellow
School; teacher at Roosevelt School; and, Instructor at Merritt Business School. For six
years he was a member of the Summer Session faculty at the University of California, both
in Berkeley and in Los Angeles.

Moore earned an D.Ed. from the University of California at Berkeley following his
retirement (1937). In 1941 he settled in Grants Pass, Oregon. There he served as Manager
of the Chamber of Commerce; Mayor; Superintendent of Josephine County General Hospital;
President of the Southern Oregon Hospitalization Board; and Chairman of the County Tax
Budget Committee. He resigned as Mayor of Grants Pass to accept a position at Oregon
State College in Corvallis. Moore and his wife, Martha Catherine, had four children:
Elsie Bell Moore Abbott; Minnie Mona Moore Marsh; May Moore Smith; and, Wilbur Ransford
Moore.

Scope and Content

The Wirt Moore papers consist chiefly of letters of recommendation and other
correspondence pertaining to Moore's teaching career. They also include autobiographical
and creative writing.

Container List

BOX 1: WIRT E. MOORE PAPERS

1.1 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS

1)-Autobiography, 10-49 [2 pp.]

2)-Untitled reminiscence when he was fifteen working on the lower Umpqua river in Oregon in 14 chapters, Dedicated to Grant
Balderree, unpaginated, [81 pages] [describes jobs in logging industry, dishwasher and as dairy ranch hand at Alfred Oar ranch
and the Grant Baldrey ranch. The Oar ranch was on marshland on the mouth of the Scofield River. Reedport now occupies the
marsh where the dairy herd used to roam]